Discovering common ground in European social innovation projects: mapping the BoostInno network collaboration

A while ago, I mentioned that I was going to share some exciting new community mapping projects I have been working on using my participatory community mapping methodology with online network visualization tool Kumu. After my post on mapping some Rotterdam Centres of Expertise, I now continue my series with the work I have been doing on mapping the collaboration in the URBACT BoostINNO project.

URBACT is an EU programme that aims “to enable cities to work together and develop integrated solutions to common urban challenges, by networking, learning from one another’s experiences, drawing lessons and identifying good practices to improve urban policies.”

BoostInno is one of the networks developed in URBACT,  with the aim to “enable public administrations to play a new role as public booster and brokers/facilitators of social innovation activities/projects/policies, by driving social innovation in, through and out the public sector.” Member cities include Gdansk (PL)-Lead partner, Paris (FR), Milan (IT), Turin (IT), Braga (PT), Barcelona (ES), Wroclaw (PL), Skane County (S), Baia Mare (RO), Strasbourg (FR), plus Lviv (UA) as an observer.

In preparation of one of its working meetings in Barcelona in November, I was asked to map the collaboration of the BoostInno network. Goal was to see if mapping this collaborative community of cities could help its members to make better sense of whom to work with and on what themes.  In particular, at this meeting, each city was to make a selection of other cities in the network to plan site visits to. Given that there were 11 cities present in Barcelona, and that there was only little dedicated time to meet and discuss with potential partners, it was felt that a map showing the common ground might be really helpful.

Prior to the meeting, we sent out a survey asking all cities to briefly describe 5 of their “flagship projects”, local projects that could serve as showcases of what they had to offer and share with their European peers. We also asked them to tag their projects with topics from the list of URBACT “Urban Topics”, concrete social innovation topics that cities work on and that URBACT has grouped in categories such as Integrated Urban Development, Economy, Environment, Governance, and Inclusion. Besides mapping those elements, I also added what “sharings” (concrete offerings) the cities wanted to “give” to and “use” from other cities. The resulting map literally shows the common ground of the BoostInno network, making it much easier to identify what is the common focus, but also to identify one’s own position and interests in the bigger scheme of things.

At the conference, I first presented the overall map, showing the big picture. However, I also set up a “mapping station”, where representatives of the various cities could come and see me. I then gave each of them a personalized tour showing how their city was positioned on the map, and what themes and  projects of other cities theirs was most closely related to.  In this way, precious meeting time could be used as efficiently as possible, as city representatives could more easily identify the potentially most relevant partners – also present in Barcelona – to talk to.

However, the buck didn’t stop there. As the BoostInno Lead Expert Peter Wolkowinski stated in his piece Why cities and their governance are vital keys to boosting social innovation, participatory community mapping goes way beyond the operational support. It has strategic political value too:

building communities depends on our capacities to intervene, to show results, to create maps, that allow intuitive sensemaking processes to exist. This in turn develops a common vision amoung participants, creating a very strong “social glue”. If used as tools for cross-fertilisation, for integrated action planning and doing, this kind of knowledge and feeling can be translated into political arguments, working at the core of the present crisis we are living through, where a total lack of trust has become what is common, but not what gives sense and unites different stakeholders.

As a now validated URBACT “Ad-Hoc Expert”, I aim to continue to work with the BoostInno team to weave my participatory community mapping methodology into the emerging social innovation approach of the network. I am excited to have this opportunity to keep working together with such committed people on ways to strengthen and share lessons about European collaboration on social innovation at the city level, the level where the conditions for the future prosperity and peace of our continent are being created…  To be continued.

Update July 14, 2017: A video interview held with me in Barcelona about the mapping project was just published: